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Fragrancing the Buddha

Strike a match—
coo-whik-shhhooh!
Let silence bloom. 

Catch a whiff 
of sulfur’s pungent 
essence. Dopamine.

Ignite the incense. 
Can you hear it
smolder? Breathe in

the scent of cinnamon,
sandalwood, benzoin.
Let bliss be. 

Settle in. 
Lift each vertebrae
and spread your collarbones

until your heart 
goes tippy-toes,
can’t wait to fledge,

lets you hold it 
and place it, gently
on the altar

at the Buddha’s feet 
where incense whorls,
compassion flows,

and consciousness 
can’t help but twinkle.

John Whitney Steele is a psychologist, yoga teacher, assistant editor of Think: A Journal of Poetry, Fiction and Essays, and graduate of the MFA Poetry Program at Western Colorado University. A Pushcart Prize nominee, his poems have been published widely. His two collections, The Stones Keep Watch, and Shiva’s Dance, were published by Kelsay Books. John lives in Colorado and enjoys hiking in the mountains.

Present

The day my dad died it didn’t rain.
There was no flooding, no trees
toppled over, no violent hurricane,
no water lashing the earth.
There was just a vast void 
in my life, a chasm too difficult 
to cross. I didn’t leave the house. 

Late in the afternoon, it arrived
unexpectedly—a large, square,
flat package, there, on the porch,
from Rebecca, one of my dearest
friends I’d not seen for seven years.

When I opened it, I discovered
the portrait I’d seen her working on
all those years ago, the painting 
I had asked if I could buy.

It’s not finished yet, she said.

So I returned to my life
on the opposite coast, writing
letters to cross the distance between 
us. I forgot about the painting.

Now, on the day my father died,
October 18, 2022, it came
without expectation, without
fanfare, the painting I dearly loved: 
A woman’s serious face surrounded
by flowers, alive with color,
the colors strange and vibrant. 

And I knew it was meant for me,
on this day, that in the divine order
of the universe I was remembered
and cherished. This was a sign
from God. Now the work
is finished. 

Anderson O’Brien lives in Winston-Salem, NC with her devoted husband and two terribly spoiled cats. She has published in Iodine Poetry Journal, The Kentucky Review, Blue Fifth Review, Red River Review and Heavy Bear.

Autumn Song



There’s no going back to summer,
to that spring. The past is fading 
and it’s beautiful, beautiful... 
The world is always healing, 

always shedding old weight, 
riding the current for Now...
Now a decision must be made: 

Will you lie and squander 
in the briars of your sorrow? 

       Or push up,  out—

       into the new life?

Ahrend Torrey is the author of This Moment (Pinyon Publishing, 2024). His work has appeared in Denver Quarterly, storySouth, Panorama: The Journal of Travel, Place, and Nature, The Greensboro Review, The Westchester Review, Welter, and West Trade Review, among others. He lives in Chicago with his husband, Jonathan; their two rat terriers, Dichter and Dova; and Purl, their cat.

Letter to a desert mother

Theodora, I know so little about your life, and you 
haven’t heard of mine, lodged in this unthinkable future. 

You sleep on a coarse mat with sheepskin for cover, own 
two clay jars for water and oil, a lamp casting shadowy light. 

My soft-cushioned life is the kind you escaped from.  
Brightness in my home is dimmed at a touch. While you wash 

your own clothes, I have a metal box that performs that task.  
Entertainment winds around my days, noise grips them firmly. 

Discarding linens finely beaded, you wear a rough tunic, 
dress as a man to avoid unwanted attention. 

I’m comfortable lounging in jeans, nevertheless 
own more than one dress and coat. 

You’re tired of men who wield power, live to excess.
That world is also familiar to me, so I vote, sign petitions. 

Yet I know large gestures are not the answer, it’s cutting 
my own excesses— a new jumper, endless cups of coffee, 

hoarding books — that will change how I view the world, 
allow me to walk gently on our fragile planet. 

This is why, sometimes, I feel the need to meet with you 
in your desert-solitude, sink into layers of silence 

where we circle our deepest hopes, then face our reality— 
you weaving mats, me mopping the kitchen floor. 



In about the fourth century, groups of men and women moved out into the desert to live a different kind of life. The desert fathers are remembered, the desert mothers mostly forgotten.

Yvonne Baker’s debut poetry pamphlet, Tree Light, was a winner in the Cinnamon Pamphlet Prize 2022 and her debut collection, Love Haunts in Shades of Blue, won the Cinnamon Literature Prize and The Rubery Book Award for best poetry collection 2025. Her other collections with Cinnamon Press are Light Still, Light Turning and Backwards forwards across the sea. Her pamphlet Becoming Wetland will be published in 2026.

Smallest Things

It’s time to watch now for the smallest things:
How quick the little baby up the block 
Has grown and now begun to walk;
How early in the day the robin sings;
How even just a passing stranger’s smile brings
The sense we’re still somehow quite interlocked
One to the other, still can feel, can talk,
Can whistle in the dark, can even sing.
For big things, so it seems. have all gone bad:
Decayed, collapsed, betrayed our deepest trust.
They totter strangely, just about to fall.
And yet we must not let ourselves be sad;
Must hold to faith and not become nonplussed:
The Greatest Thing is hiding in the small.

Jeffrey Essmann is an essayist and poet living in New York. His poetry has appeared in numerous magazines and literary journals, among them Dappled Things, the St. Austin Review, Amethyst Review, Pensive Journal, Forma Journal, and The Society of Classical Poets. He is a certified catechist with the Archdiocese of New York, a Benedictine oblate of St. Mary’s Abbey in Morriston, NJ, and editor of The Catholic Poetry Room page on the Integrated Catholic Life website.

The Geode
for Maggie, 5 years old


As soon as her fingertip touches
the purple crystals, her face
absorbs their luminous light.
She is ready to enter--
the crystals part,
a moss carpet appears. A balloon,
feeling like warm soft skin,
wanting to be held, drifts towards her.
She reaches for its string,
the balloon her partner
as she twirls, circles and leaps
in her gauze skirt.
Someone calls her name,
the moss carpet disappears.
She stops dancing,
the balloon floats away.
In a corner of her desk,
she places the amethyst,
its promises to her
glowing forever.

Janet Krauss, after retirement from teaching 39 years of English at Fairfield University, continues to mentor students,  lead a poetry discussion at the Wilton Library, participate in a CT. Poetry Society Workshop, and one other plus two poetry groups. She co-leads the Poetry Program of the Black Rock Art Guild. She has two books of poetry: Borrowed Scenery (Yuganta Press) and Through the Trees of Autumn (Spartina Press).  Many of her poems have been published in Amethyst Review, and her haiku in Cold Moon Journal.

Tea Wine 

I lower my mouth like a prayer
to this steaming cup of tea. 
My spine tingles as the warmth spreads
through my chest, makes my body a furnace 
in this freezing autumn room. 
I sip again and again,
this is my communion wine
this is my sacred place—
God, make me still
make my heart fill to all its depths
let no part of me be untouched
by the warmth of this tea
and the stinging chill of the air outside 
on my cheeks. 

God, I am holy
God, I am rising above the places I felt I 
deserved to stay and
reaching past the limits my history 
imposed on me.

God, I am meeting you,
our hearts like vapor melding together
until we are one. 
You are breathing me,
filling your lungs with my desires 
I am shaping you
and you are shaping me
and like the roots of an old oak
we grow together 
twisting around each other in ecstasy. 

Moriah Brown is a poet, novelist, and full-time student at Syracuse University working towards a degree in creative writing. Her poetry has been published in Creation Magazine, The Woolf, and The Passionfruit Review, among others, and has also been featured in Alchemy and Miracles Anthology and Bimbo Feminist Anthology. She is from Fort Worth, Texas, and loves writing, birds, and her cat Nala.

Elizabeth Shanaz is a New York based writer. Her work has been featured in Playboy, Human/Kind, Sorjo, Defunkt, PREE Lit, Zhagaram Literary, BRAWL Literary, wildscape Literary Journal, The Literary Times, and the Blue Minaret, among other journals and magazines. She studied writing and literature at CUNY City College before earning her law degree from NYU School of Law. She is the proud child of Guyanese immigrants.

Dandelion Doctrine

such an intricate simplicity,
these rules,
these ideas

every book on the subject
sends one to next week,
head reeling,
high as a kite

the closest we’ll ever get
to our greatest potential:
we can taste it
it’s right there

and yet so far away

the chemical signature of caffeine
petals of a dandelion
meditation
Islamic art

the Absolute
starts to show up
everywhere

awe and fear
paralyzes me

Kendra C. Duke is a poet and independent scholar based in London, Ontario. Her work explores the intersection of ethics, spiritual inquiry, and social responsibility. She holds a Master’s in Philosophy from Queen’s University and writes across genres, including essays, poetry, and public philosophy. She is the author of “Subspace Log”, an interdisciplinary newsletter, and is currently preparing several long-form projects that bridge philosophical reflection with poetic insight.

Consider the Birds

Can you not see the seagulls
rolling in the cool rumpled sheets of air
over the lake, pressing their case
for spiritual freedom?

Do the robins, plump and puffed as priests, 
plundering the green grass,
not witness dutifully
to their unwavering faith in abundance?

Even the wise man of Bethlehem
recognized in this their mastery.

And if the shy wren, 
plumed in brown in a brown bush,
lifts his bright voice—
lifts his radiant voice--
does it not seem as if the bush is singing?
As if the bush were on fire 
with the crackling blaze of his gratitude?

Oh, take off your shoes, my Soul,
when the wren comes hallowing!

Is this not God?
The God of my ancestors?
The God of Israel, who speaks
by wind and flame,
whale and ass?

Penny Freedwing writes poetry and creative non-fiction along the shore of Lake Michigan north of Chicago. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Dunes Review and Deep Wild Journal.